Einstein and Relativity by Alasdair N. Beal *A new spin on an old experiment* /New Scientist /recently reported (see 'Monitor', /C&C Workshop/ 1995:2, p. 23) on problems with a classic experiment to test Einstein's Special Theory of Relativity [1]. The experiment, carried out by Marjorie and H.A. Wilson in 1913, had used a spinning cylinder in a magnetic field to test the effect of high speed motion has on the interaction between electric and magnetic fields. The results were claimed as proof that Einstein's theory was correct. However an amateur researcher, Gerald Pellegrini, has now pointed out that, as Special Relativity only applies to /linear/ motion, the use of a spinning cylinder is inappropriate and the experiment was therefore invalid. Einstein's Special Theory of Relativity is based exclusively on an analysis of bodies in uniform motion, with no accelerations. According to Arthur Swift of the University of Massachusetts, 'Special relativity is an entirely inappropriate theory to apply to a rotating body'. For rotating bodies, the appropriate theory is Einstein's General Relativity (first published in 1915) - but this predicts a different answer from that found in the Wilsons' experiment. Thus either something was wrong with the experiment . . . or there is something wrong with the theory. In discussing how this error had come about, /New Scientist/ commented that '. . . in the early part of this century, physicists assumed that rotation was a good approximation to linear motion', although this is now known to be incorrect. What the report did not mention was that it was not only miscellaneous unnamed physicists who got this wrong - Einstein himself made the same mistake in his original 1905 paper on Special Relativity Theory. The passage in question reads as follows: /'If we assume that the result proved for a polygonal line is also valid for a continuously curved line/, we arrive at this result. If one of two synchronous clocks at /A/ is moved /in a closed curve/ with constant velocity until it returns to /A/, the journey lasting /t/ seconds, then by the clock which has remained at rest the travelled clock on its arrival at /A/ will be ½/tv/^2 //c/^2 second slow. Thence we conclude that a balance-clock at the equator must go more slowly, by a very small amount, than a precisely similar clock situated at one of the poles under otherwise identical conditions.' [2, italics added] Even at everyday speeds, motion in a curve affects a body differently from straight line motion. The difference is likely to be even greater at very high speeds close to the speed of light, yet Einstein made no attempt to prove his assumption that his result for uniform motion would also apply to motion in a curve. A letter to /New Scientist/ pointing this out ('Letters', 21st October 1995) provoked one response which discussed the effects of gravity (not part of Einstein's original analysis) and another which claimed that it was not Einstein but Dingle who had made the error ('Letters', 18th November). Although it is pretty clear that Einstein was wrong, the (presumably knowledgeable) correspondents who wrote to /New Scientist/ were simply not prepared to concede that the great man might have made a mistake. In present-day scientific circles Einstein's theories are accepted as proven beyond doubt and any questioning of this seems to be regarded as almost a heresy - yet, from all accounts, Einstein himself was not dogmatic and was a modest, thoughtful and open-minded man. As late as 1949 he was reported as saying: 'There is not a single concept of which I am convinced that it will stand firm and I feel uncertain whether I am in general on the right track' [3]. Einstein's work is a cornerstone of today's physics and it is almost universally accepted by most specialists but has its validity really been proved beyond dispute? *Special Relativity* Einstein's Relativity Theory comes in both Special and General forms. It is one of the most widely-known yet least understood parts of modern physics. Most people are aware of his proposition that all motion is relative, his claim that nothing can travel faster than light and his formula e = mc^2 . If pressed, some might venture on to his paradoxes of twins and clocks, where high speed travel somehow slows down the passage of time, but how many people would claim that they genuinely understand relativity theory? Special Relativity is the simpler of the two theories, as it concerns only uniform motion without accelerations. Einstein tried to relate it to easily understood concepts like the motion of passing trains but his argument is not easy to follow. He outlines events as seen by observers on the embankment, then changes to the viewpoint of observers aboard the trains and then back again, adjusting and readjusting their clocks and watches by elaborate means as the hypothetical events unfold. It seems almost deliberately contrived to confuse the reader. To make matters worse, although Einstein's analysis initially considers time and distance in everyday terms, it is clear from what eventually follows that he believes length and time are not constant and may vary. Precisely where this leaves his initial analysis is not clear. Furthermore, if neither distance nor time is constant, what exactly does it mean to say that 'the speed of light is constant'? Although many people probably harbour some doubts about relativity, few are sufficiently committed to immerse themselves in the detailed mathematical and logical arguments and grapple seriously with the subject. Professor Kathleen Lonsdale probably spoke for many 'My difficulty is that I get so far and my mind goes blank. . . . . If I were to spend six weeks reading it again it would still mean nothing to me. My mind is not built that way. The whole of Einstein's theory just seems esoteric nonsense, as far as I am concerned . . . My mind simply does not /care/ whether clocks go at the same rate or whether they don't, and it refuses to work when I try to make sense of it. I'm sorry.' [4]. However, over the years a few persistent people have done just that. Some have managed to find 'proper' scientific or commercial publishers to handle their work but most have struggled to make their views heard on the fringes, sending manuscripts to organisations such as SIS in the hope of reaching an interested audience. *The 'Physical' Dissidents* A useful introduction to the problems of Special Relativity by Professor Ian McCausland was published in /Wireless World/ in 1983 [5]. This drew heavily on the work of the late Professor Herbert Dingle, an early supporter of Einstein who had come to doubt the validity of the theory. Dingle's book /Science at the Crossroads/ [6] is a patient and lucid exposition of his argument with supporters of special relativity theory. Dingle's central argument relates to the example of the two clocks referred to above. In his book, he expresses it as follows: 'According to the special relativity theory, as expounded by Einstein in his original paper, two similar regularly-running clocks, A and B, in uniform relative motion must work at different rates. In mathematical terms, the intervals dt and dt' which they record between the same two events are related by the Lorentz transformation, according to which dt =/ dt'. Hence one clock must work steadily at a slower rate than the other. The theory, however, provides no indication of which clock that is, and the question inevitably arises: How is the slower clock to be distinguished?' In other words if, as Einstein says, all motion is relative, how do we know which clock is travelling 'faster' and experiences the predicted slowing of time? If A is 'stationary' and B is 'moving', then clock B must go slower. Yet it is equally possible to consider B as 'stationary' and A as 'moving', in which case it is clock A which goes slower. In the famous 'twins paradox' (see later), the twin who goes away on a high speed journey is supposed to age more slowly. However it would be equally valid to look at the situation from his point of view, in which case it would be the /other/ twin who would appear to have travelled away at high speed and /he/ would then be the younger. Each twin can therefore be argued to be younger than the other and, as Dingle says, Special Relativity theory provides no way of establishing which view is correct. It is interesting that in his textbook /Relativity/, B.A. Westwood [7] remarks that 'For some reason this 'paradox', although easily and unambiguously resolvable using Special Relativity alone, still crops up from time to time in the literature'. He returns twice to the problem, providing alternative 'solutions' - yet each of these contains an obvious logical fallacy. One is reproduced at the end of this article - can you spot the mistake? Gerhard Kraus [8] has given deep consideration to the physical meaning of some propositions of Special Relativity and comes up with some interesting conundrums. 'The laws governing the slowing down of clocks and the contraction of measuring rods are defined by the 'Lorentz Transformation'. These laws are very simple, in so far as the contraction of objects results from their greater speed. Thus, a yardstick moving at the speed of light will shrink away to nothing, while a clock moving at the same speed will slow to a standstill. What Hawking and Einstein seem to have ignored here is that light travelling at the highest possible speed shows no slowing down in its velocity, nor does it experience any shortening of distance as it ages exactly one second, when travelling the standard distance of 300,000 kilometres per second. Yet a conventional clock travelling at the speed of light is supposed to come to a total standstill, as is the age of the person carrying it, while a measuring rod is supposed to shrink to nothing. Neither Hawking nor Einstein has given us any clue as to how to explain such an obvious discrepancy.'[9] Since his original article, McCausland has written a book on the subject, /The Relativity Question/ [10]. Other books worth reading on the physical aspects of relativity are /Was Einstein Right?/ by Clifford Will [11], /QED - The Strange Theory of Light and Matter/ by Richard Feynman [12] and there has been some interesting correspondence in the pages of SIS journals [13]. *Experiments* Because of the extremely high speeds required for relativistic effects, it is very difficult to devise experiments which test key aspects of the theory. For this and other reasons, there is still debate over some of the experiments which are claimed to support the theory and efforts are still made to come up with practical experiments which might test some aspect or other. Immanuel Velikovsky outlined ideas for some experiments in a paper published in /Pensée/ in 1973 [14]. In this he sought to resolve the question of whether the apparent velocity of light is affected by (a) the velocity of the source or (b) the velocity of the observer. Most experiments have been carried out with light travelling on a to and fro path and are therefore not conclusive. Velikovsky proposed an experiment to test these points but some idea of the difficulties of such work can be gained from the parameters involved: his experiment required a camera with a shutter speed of 1/100,000sec., a mirror rotating at 5,000 revolutions per second and the results of the experiment would depend on identifying a ½m difference in marks on a photographic plate. That said, the experiment, first devised by Velikovsky in 1944, represented a serious attempt to establish clear evidence on a crucial point. Dingle responded to Velikovsky's paper and in discussion it was mentioned that unfortunately the Skylab space station was unoccupied during the 1973 total eclipse of the sun, a unique opportunity to take photographs which might have resolved the mixed results obtained in observations relating to General Relativity since 1919. *The Ether* 'The ether', which Victorian physicists believed pervades space, is generally held to have died the death with the acceptance of Einstein's work but it refuses to go away completely. Dr E.W. Silvertooth has used a special photomultiplier to observe the standing waves formed by laser light in opposite directions, in an effort to establish if there is a change in forward velocity versus backward velocity - a factor not measured in any of the interference experiments to determine the velocity of light. He has found a consistent privileged direction in his experiments, regardless of time of day or year; it points to the constellation Leo, towards which the earth is claimed to be moving at 378km/s [15]. *The Mathematics* In recent years, Gertrud Walton has concentrated her efforts on the mathematics, with some surprising results. Once the initial difficulty of unravelling Einstein's complex reasoning and notation is done, Walton claims that there are elementary algebraic errors to be found. What is critical to realise is that although his proofs claim to consider matters such as spherical propagation, they are based on an analysis which is strictly 1-dimensional, with other coordinates effectively set as zero. Walton has found mathematical sign errors and at one point in a key proof finds that Einstein commited the oldest trick in the mathematical book, dividing both sides of an equation by a term which is equal to zero. In a contribution to the journal /Philosophy/ [16] she commented that 'One might contend that Einstein's observers have been central to his process of mystification; it is their function to thwart any attempt to discover what may be the case at other locations and instants other than those of observation.' Copies of Walton's papers 'Exorcising the Lorentz transformation', 'Cantor's Diagonal Argument Fails' and 'Einstein's Errors' are available by post from the Editor of /C&C Review/ (see end of article for details)././ *Where do we go from here?* Unless we can define some universal fixed frame of reference, such as 'the ether' beloved of Victorian physicists, there is a problem in defining motion and there are many difficulties in trying to work out what happens at very high speeds approaching the speed of light. Strangely, discussions of the 'twins paradox' and the other odd things predicted by the theory of Special Relativity generally make no reference to the principle which Westwood describes as 'Einstein's first postulate': 'It is impossible to perform an experiment to detect absolute motion of an inertial coordinate system' [17]. The purpose of this article is not to argue that there are easy answers to the problems of relativity but simply to draw attention to the existence some awkward questions about Einstein's work which remain to be answered and (for those with the interest and mental stamina) there is still 'work to be done'. For those interested in pursuing the matter further, there is an organisation - The Natural Philosophy Alliance - and the Canadian journal /Apeiron/ publishes material on the subject. Those who wish to move from on from Special Relativity to the more complex General Relativity might care to ponder the following quotation from Einstein's introduction to General Relativity 'In a space which is free of gravitational fields we introduce a Galilean system of reference K(x,y,z,t) and also a system of coordinates K'(x',y',z',t') /in uniform rotation/ relatively to K . . . . . . the measuring rod applied to the periphery undergoes a Lorentzian contraction . . . /By a familiar result of the special theory of relativity/, the clock at the circumference - judged from K - goes more slowly than the other, because the former is in motion and the latter is at rest' [18, emphasis added]. Maybe the error pointed out by Pellegrini has consequences beyond simply the interepretation of a laboratory experiment carried out in 1913 . . . . . *Spot The Error* As promised, here is the 'solution' to the twins paradox provided by Westwood [19]. 'The astronaut twin's journey can be divided into five stages, as illustrated 1. rapid acceleration from rest to velocity /v, /2. steady motion at velocity /v/ for a distance /L/, 3. rapid deceleration to change the velocity to /v/ in the other direction, 4. steady motion at velocity /v/ for a distance /L/, 5. rapid deceleration from velocity /v/ to rest.' Westwood argues that from the earth twin's point of view, stages (2) and (4) dominate the journey and he calculates that the astronaut twin should return younger by /t/ » /Lv///c/2. He then concedes that the astronaut twin would expect the same to happen to the earth twin, so 'the paradox seems to have re-appeared, but it is only because we have ignored the accelerations. The effects of the accelerations in stages (i) and (v) are exact opposites and so compensate each other (as do the effects of the earth's gravitational field), but during the whole of stage (iii) the astronaut is accelerated towards the earth. This produces a permanent time difference between the clocks of the twins.' Can you spot his mistake? (See p. 34 for answer.) *Acknowledgements *Thanks are due to Gertrud Walton and Derek Walker for their assistance in preparing this paper. The Natural Philosophy Alliance can be contacted c/o John Lierein, 1837 W. Redfield Road, Gilbert, AZ 85233, USA. For details of /Apeiron/ please contact /Apeiron/, c/o C. Roy Keys, 4405, St-Dominique, Montreal, Quebec H2W 2B2, Canada. For copies of papers by Gertrud Walton referred to above, please send a self addressed envelope to *The Editor, /C&C Review/, 10 King George Avenue, Chapel Allerton, Leeds LS7 4LH, West Yorkshire, Great Britain*. *References* 1. 'Amateur makes fools of the experts', /New Scientist/, 16th Sept. 1995, p. 17; also /American Journal of Physics/, vol. 63, p. 694. 2. Einstein, A., /Ann. d. Phys./, *17*, 891 (1905), English translation in Einstein et al, /The Principle of Relativity/, p. 49, Methuen, 1923. 3. Professor H.C. Dudley, /Pensée/ VI, p. 60. 4. Lonsdale, K., quoted by Dingle, pp. 56, 57. 5. McCausland, I, 'Problems in special relativity', /Wireless World/, October 1983. 6. Dingle, H., /Science at the Crossroads/, Martin Brian & O'Keeffe, London, 1972. 7. Westwood, B.A., /Relativity/, Macmillan, Basingstoke & London, 1971. 8. Gerhard Kraus, /Has Hawking Erred?/, Janus, London, 1993. 9. Ibid. p. 37 10. Ian McCausland, /The Relativity Question/, Dept. of Electrical Engineering, Univ. of Toronto, Toronto, Canada M5S 1A4. 11. /Was Einstein Right?/, Clifford Will, Basic Books, 1986. 12. /QED - The Strange Theory of Light and Matter/, Feynman, R., Penguin, 1990. 13. 'An Exasperated Protest', Harry Mongold, /C&C Workshop/, 1991:1, p. 38, A.R. Andrew, 1991:2, p. 34, H. Mongold, 1992:1 p. 47, A.R. Andrew, 1993:1, 33. 14. Velikovsky, I., 'The Velocity of Light in Relation to Moving Bodies', /Pensée/ V, Fall 1973. 15. /Nature/ vol. 322, p. 590, 14th August 1986, E.W. Silvertooth, 'Experimental detection of the ether', /Speculations in Science and Technology/, vol. 10, pp. 3D7, 1987, 'Motion through the ether', /Electronics and Wireless World/, London, May 1989, reported in /Galilean Electrodynamics/, Vol. 1, No. 1, 1990. 16. /Philosophy/ Vol. 90, 1995, pp. 114-117. 17. Westwood op. cit. p. 12. 18. A. Einstein, /The Principle of Relativity/, Dover, pp. 115,116. 19. Westwood op. cit. p. 76. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Relativity 'Spot the Error' (p. 32) - Answer Acceleration (i) and deceleration (v) are not opposites - the deceleration which reduces the speed of the spaceship as it returns to earth is equivalent to an acceleration away from the earth's surface, so it is in fact the /same /as acceleration (i). Therefore the effects of (i) and (v) are not opposites which 'compensate each other' - they are equal and their effects are additive. Their combined effects equal the acceleration towards the earth in stage (iii) which turns the space ship at the middle of its journey and they compensate its effects. Thus all the various accelerations cancel one another out and we are back to the problem of having two twins, each of whom must be younger than the other . . . . ------------------------------------------------------------------------ The Eloquent Talking Head of Bran Heads were venerated by the Celts. They impaled them on wooden stakes, hung them bloodily, (or dried), from their belts as talismans, incorporated heads in art and as a religious symbols. In the Urnfield Period and the Bronze Age in central Europe, the head was a solar symbol, it is thought ... perhaps cometary in origin [1]. The Irish tale, /Buile Suibhne/, describes an anguished man pursued by FIVE grey heads bristling with anger and clashing furiously with each other as they leapt in pursuit on the road behind him. In other stories talking heads are common and headless ghosts are a feature of ghoulish tales .... and /Hamlet/. In the Hebrides talking heads are sometimes associated with wells and made prophecies. In Old Gaelic tales severed heads of renowned adversaries were washed, cleansed and paraded in fine trimmings and they could sing, move and speak; stone heads placed on stone pillars have obvious mythical parallels. The most famous tale of a head is that of Bran in the Welsh collection known as /the Mabinogion/. Bran was huge, a giant. He was able to wade across the sea to Ireland with an army in ships floundering in his wake. His sister had been mistreated by the king of Ireland, it is alleged (in another variation of the Helen of Troy tale). In the original myth it was a celestial sea and Bran was accompanied by an army of meteoric material. In the humanised version of the tale a herdsman on the cliffs of Leinster took fright and hastily reported to the king, 'a /mountain/ was heading towards them - with a forest of trees behind him' (the lances of the warriors in the army of Bran). The mountain was a large lump in the sky, such as a comet - with a meteoric swarm riding in its wake. Only /seven/ survived the encounter and Bran was mortally wounded [2]. He asked his companions to cut off his head after he died and take it on their travels. He made prophecies, entertained them - with poetry, wit and an eloquent turn of words. Eventually his head was buried in London at what was known as /White Hill/. This was a /white mound/ on which it is believed the Tower was built. 'Bran' is composed of two basic elements: (i) /br/ = fiery or bright, the root of burn, brass, brazier, Bres, Brigit, and Brunhilde (chief of the Valkyries or fire maidens). It is cognate also with barrow (a mound), and bury (a mound), and bury (a grave). A mound = a heap of sods and turf, and very often chalk rubble (which is white). On that basis the head of Bran has terrestrialised in the White Mound of London. (ii) The second element /an/ = light, bright etc. [3]. Bran is cognate with Irish /Brian/, a son of Turenn (a link with Taur-us?) and also has a secondary meaning = crow or raven [4]. This explains why ravens are associated with the Tower of London. They are large black birds and denote a black aspect of deity. In the Bible, Noah 'sent forth a raven which went to and fro, until the waters were dried up from the face of the ground' (Gen. 8,7). Sir Fred Hoyle claimed that comet heads were black. The recent Comet Halley space probe has confirmed this. Did a comet come close enough to human vision for this fact to become embedded in myth? The Greeks had a black giant, Memnon. The leader of the Greek forces which besieged Troy was /Agamemnon, /and the war was fought over fair Helen, a humanised version of a heavenly drama and strikingly reminiscent of the /Mabinogion/ tale of /Branwen/. The giant pinned down in the heavens, variously Nimrod, Orion etc., is juxtaposed near the constellation of Taurus, the bull, facing one of the prominent meteor streams (of Clube and Napier) and, like Achilles, the giant was wounded in the foot or ankle (the Lamed or Fisher King of Romance). /Or-ion/ is etymologically similar to /Err-ain/ (the land of the goddess /Eriu/, a form of /Aine/), and /Ur-ien/ of the Welsh, /ar-yan/ of the Hindus, /Ir-an/ of the Persians, but what of /Arthur/. In one sense he may be cognate with a heavenly bull or bear but what about the root of /tree/, i.e. a celestial tree, a phenomenon in the sky involving a stream of light and branches (?). Bran was also associated with a platter or dish on which his head was carried. The analogy with a /boar's /head taking pride of place at table has been mentioned elsewhere, a parody of the eloquent head of Bran - with an apple in its mouth. Another feature of the story is the arrival in Wales of an Irish giant with a magical cauldron and his wife. These are thinly glossed descriptions of /the Dagda/ and his consort, /Aine./ Cauldrons are associated with feasting and with making offerings to the gods [5]. The wont of the Dagda was large quantities of porridge, a tribute raised from the farms of Ireland. They also cooked meat - including specially fattened animals killed and consumed by the community at festivals. In the Bran story the cauldron is magical and has the ability to revive dead warriors killed in battle, enabling them to fight again. An interesting idea but they were unnaturally dumb- i.e. they were inanimate in the original source, like meteoric material that had fizzled out but as it entered the atmosphere revived in a burst of glorious light and sound. A cauldron is conical - a cometary or meteoric shape. It stands on tri-pods = the symbol of the thunderbolt (meteorite) and cauldrons were used to cook the food of warrior bands, at meat (in the halls of chiefs and kings). Cauldrons are a favourite motif of Celts and other Germanic warrior societies [6]. The king and his band of fighting men appear to be derived in imitation of the sky god and his host of followers attacking the earth. Cauldrons may also be associated with sacrifice and the dark side of the gods. This may have arisen in the cooking of horses, oxen, and pigs - cooked over a fire, in broth. The famous /Gundestrup/ cauldron, a votive offering found in a Danish bog, appears to controversially depict a giant chef plucking a human victim and dropping him into a cauldron to be boiled [7]. *Phillip Clapham* *References* 1. Ann Ross, /Pagan Celtic Britain,/ Constable:1992, p94-171. 2. The numbers 7 and 5 are interesting. Added together they make 12, a zodiacal number, while 7 = 3 + 4 and 4 times 3 = 12. The odd number out is 5, yet David used 5 sling stones to bring down Goliath, Jack's 5 beans grew stalks that reached to the heavens and 5 grey heads pursued the demented Suibhne. In the Bible Judah, the Lion, had 5 sons and Leo is the 5th sign of the Zodiac. Might there have been 5 prominent visible pieces of a comet at some time? 3. TF O'Rahilly, /Early Irish History and Mythology/, Dublin:1964. 4. M Senior, /Myths of Britain,/ BCA: 1979, p219 and Sir John Rhys, /Studies in the Arthurian Legend/, Oxford:1890, p254. 5. Arthur's table groaning with food was a medieval modernisation of the cauldron. It was suitably rounded and Arthur sat at the head of his knights and guests etc. 6) The Celts were living in the Danube valley in the second millennium BC and Early Celtic tribal movements, during the first millennium BC, were a forerunner of the Germanic warrior bands that repeatedly breached Roman borders in the first millennium AD. The Greeks described the Celts in terms of Germans and to the Romans the Celts were Germans west of the Rhine and the Germans were their barbarian cousins to the east of the Rhine and north of the Danube. Groups of Celtic warriors established dynasts in Britain and Ireland, it might be argued, a pattern that was copied by the Saxons after they deposed the Romano-Celts in sub-Roman Britain and the Normans 500 years or so afterwards. 7) Thomas Cahill, /How the Irish Saved Civilisation/, Hodder and Stoughton, 1995. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ The Colour Purple In the Irish tale /The Wooing of Etain/ [1], the characters are clearly identifiable with the main protagonists of Arthurian Romance. /Eochaid Airem/ (a variation of the Dagda) = Arthur, /Etain/ = Guinevere (a white lady), /Mider/ = Mordred, and /Aengus/ = Lancelot. The lovely white limbed Etain [2] is described as having cheeks the colour of foxgloves, while her various lovers preen themselves in cloaks the colour of purple and fringed with gold. At one stage in the story a malevolent witch turns Etain into a purple butterfly and sends an enchanted wind and raises a great storm which buffets the frail butterfly mercilessly. The story seems to associate Etain with atmospheric abnormalities similar to the storm in the story of Ursula and the 11,000 maidens, the great storm in the Biblical story of Deborah (in Hebrew a bee?) and goddesses such as /Anath/. MG Reade [3] suggested the colour of purple had a connection with the fiery cloud (of speculative composition) which followed the Israelites through Sinai. Velikovsky claimed the colour of purple was associated with royalty, priests and bishops, and military men with gold leaf etc. and had origins in Venus (a goddess). The Canaanites and Phoenicians boiled a local mollusc to produce purple dye and developed a lucrative trade in purple coloured cloth. The /Oxford English Dictionary/ claims purple is composed of red and blue hues (colours of the spectrum of light) but purple requires the presence of white (and/or black). The black of the night in combination with the white light of Etain could have been the catalyst as the sun came up above the horizon, white light shedding its blue hues in the rosy fingers of dawn = the Morning Star. *Phillip Clapham* *References* 1. Frank Delaney, /Legends of the Celts/, Grafton, 1991. 2. Geoffrey Ashe, /Mythology of the British Isles/ and Guinevere (see also Phillips and Keatman, /The True Story of King Arthur,/ Century, 1992) 3. M.G. Reade, /Manna as a Confection/ in /SIS Review/ I:2, p. 10 where the colour of purple is associated with the Glory of the Lord, a burning fiery cloud and manna that only fell in the mornings. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ \cdrom\pubs\journals\review\v1996n1\30einst.htm